


Trophy Moment

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Series: Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Family, Food, Grocery Shopping, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:06:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5291969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://femmechester.tumblr.com/">femmechester</a> asked: i realize this is not totally within the scope of what you're blogging about today but it makes me happy to consider the first thanksgiving sam and chuck spend together, who cooks, who grocery shops, who is more stressed and overwhelmed, who enjoys the day the most, and if it aligns with any our general concepts of who they are. also!! if they're alone, or if dean has managed to wrap them all up in the feast he's always wanted to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trophy Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Another random point on the _Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride_ timeline. Post-proposal, post-baseball, pre-wedding.

Oh, yes. Dean snatched them right up.

He brooked no arguments. There’s no hunt. The girls are coming in. Claire found a pie recipe she wants to make. Charlie has been working so, so, so hard down in the lower levels doing nothing but scanning, archiving, tagging, categorizing, handling every single book and loose page from the lock-ups with every bit of free time she has.

“You’re coming,” Dean says, at last, and hangs up.

Um. Sam puts his phone down on the bedside table to charge. Comes out from their bedroom. “I guess we’re going down to the bunker? For Thanksgiving?”

Chuck pauses his show. “You didn’t figure on that?”

Well, okay.

Traveling down in their freezing, drafty car with no heat is more of an issue to Chuck than anything. Sam is silently pissed he doesn’t get to do this alone. Doesn’t get to do the couple-thing. But Chuck only acts as if he expected nothing less.

He didn’t expect the dramatic turn in the weather, however, and they stop - twice - to buy him first a scarf and a hat, then a better jacket.

Sam bundles him back into the passenger seat and frets. “It gets cold down in that hole in the ground. We don’t have to go to the bunker just because Dean-”

“It doesn’t get that cold down there. The heat’s pretty great. I mean. I know it _can_ get cold but,” he reaches for Sam’s other hand. Thumbs at his ring. “This has made you better but it still hasn’t dropped you down to people-temp. You’ll be around to warm me up. Right?”

Sam half-smiles.

“You wanna turn around and go back to the apartment?” Chuck offers. “I didn’t know you were really looking forward to it that much. I thought,” he shrugs. “Dean’s cooking. It’s Dean and the whole fam and Dean’s cooking. I thought-”

“Yeah. But.” Okay this is stupid.

He makes the mistake of glancing over his shoulder, though, and Chuck gets it without him saying.

“You wanted to do the shopping.”

“The grocery shopping,” he admits.

“What’s your weird thing with supermarkets?” Chuck grins.

“What’s your weird thing about making out in the kitchen?” Sam challenges and presses in to kiss him.

“Call Dean back. Tell him he can write up the list. But we’re buying the groceries. It’ll be that easy.”

“He’s a control freak, though. If I get the wrong fucking celery-”

“We’ll tell him there was no better celery. It’s not a world-ending lie, I promise.”

That shouldn’t be the key, but it actually makes it better?

Because, yeah. Sam’s got this whole _absurd_ thing about shopping with Chuck.

«»

When they get to town, they get settled in their old room, first, then collect the list from Dean. Sam snatches it right out from under his nose as he’s biting his tongue, re-reading it with a pencil in hand. He grabs for it back but Sam holds it too-high and he says, “I’ll text you when I remember what else,” because he will invent six other things he wants to make by the time they’re parked outside.

In town, they park far back and huddle into their coats before trooping up to the shopping center.

Then Sam grabs a cart.  
Holds out his hand.  
He’s very serious about this. When they go to the grocery store, Chuck is supposed to hold his hand.

Sam fucking loves going grocery shopping with him.

This kind of pre-dates a lot of their ‘them’ things. It’s pretty much the first.

Without beer in his life and on a steady dollar-menu diet maybe once a day, Chuck dropped several pounds because he just didn’t think about eating right until Sam started hanging out with him.

He made him go to the different grocery stores in the area a whole lot. Since Chuck is, intermittently, a picky eater, they’d have to hit up several places for several different kinds of foods. And Sam learned that they’d have to cruise the whole store just so he didn’t skip over something that Chuck decided he was into that week.

He also kept him out of the beer & wine aisles.

Once he was allowed to kiss Chuck, the practice changed slightly.

Grocery stores -- real ones, not just quick-stop gas stations and dollar-store dirt markets -- give Sam this huge, warm feeling that he has a hard time putting into words.

Chuck knows the words he’s looking for have to do with the idea that taking someone to the store, buying things to make elaborate meals and feed them, is a super important thing. Dean raised him on what little he could until he really started to push his limits cooking. Then, when they settled into the bunker, Dean had an opportunity to show Sam he cared by resurrecting the practice with more depth and repetition.

Capital-n, capital-p, Normal People, also make an appearance at grocery stores, no matter who they are. All the muggles end up there with their children bopping around their ankles or solo people rush through on their cell phones or stand at the counter doing Western Union and check cashing or people stroll together telling inside jokes. The whole rainbow of humanity. Families and loners and easy eaters and picky eaters. People who take their time and people who have lists and places to go.

Since he’s gonna be going down every aisle, anyway, this is the time when Sam gets to be half of their family, when he gets to be one of a coupled-up couple.

He’ll go by himself if he has to, run in for something real quick if he has to, but he prefers to make sure that he has what he needs to keep Chuck from skipping over meals.

Chuck felt guilty about consuming his time this way at first. But, honestly, they moved into the couple thing really well even before they were coupled-up. Their long trips to the grocery store were full of stories and debates and learning each other’s tastes.

Now that they’re holding hands doing the same, Sam just feels easy and content and kinda proud, which is weird. But he likes being _them together_ so much.

He told Chuck he could say no. Eventually he even admitted that they don’t have to hold hands. "You know,” Chuck had said with a small, knowing smile, “If this is all it takes to make you happy, I seriously lucked out.”

He follows the rules. They always hold hands.

In some places, people will make ugly little faces at them for it.

Chuck only holds on tighter. Hangs on to Sam’s coat pocket when he’s reading ingredients or tying up produce bags. He hardly ever wanders far because they’re normally deep in conversation.

He points at a box on the top shelf and marks it off Dean’s list. "We need to talk about something before I get overly-emotional about it," he comments like it’s no big deal.

Sam tosses the box in the cart and snags his hand back up. "Did I do something?"

"Nothing out of the usual. I just have a lot of feelings piling up."

Sam blinks and keeps moving forward. "Okay."

Chuck squeezes his hand. "I just really love you and I haven’t had Thanksgiving dinner with a family since junior year. That’s the last time I went home.”

“Oh.” Crap. He should have known. He should have figured that. Chuck hasn’t really communicated that much with his family since college so, obviously, barring any possible invites from friends, it’s not likely that he would have had an opportunity to do this.

“Before you preemptively call yourself a shit for not knowing that, I’m not wild about any holidays at all. It’s not really... they’re not really important. They don’t matter much to me. But you matter to me. And if we had stayed home and it was just us, that would have been fine. And this is fine, too. I just- this is fine. And the fact that there will be more people by noon tomorrow,” he blows out a breath. “That’s okay, too. It’s not even just okay. I mean. I kinda hope it’s more worthy of a replay than. You know. Stephanie with the braces?”

Oh, fuck. Yeah. Chuck saw his heaven. Chuck knows about that, too.

Sam cringes.

Chuck swings their hands once and pushes the cart forward into the next aisle, himself. “I just figured you ought to know that. Sam, I know there were other places you would have gone. Moments you would have relived. I know where you would have found Dean in those memories, even if he doesn’t believe those things are there. I just. I guess I’m getting emotional all of a sudden because I wonder if this will be the Thanksgiving you go to first. I wonder where we’ll find each other when we get there. It might not be anything like this at all. Maybe it will be more intense? Maybe it will be something more significant. Maybe it-- I kind of think one of us will be leaning over a cart in a random grocery store in a random aisle and just. The other one will walk up and throw a sack of potatoes in. You know? I’m sorry. This is kind of morbid,” he shakes himself and lets go and moves around the cart to pull a few cans off the shelf. He checks a text and leans over and adds something to the list, writing against his knee.

Sam hears what he’s saying. And it is morbid, but for them it’s kind of.

He supposes it’s a natural concern.

When they get to heaven, will they just pick up where they left off? Will they even see each other?

Chuck doesn’t like to allow him time for other thoughts – like _will I even belong in heaven?_

He wants to relive a holiday he doesn’t even care for because he’s hoping it will be big and loving and rowdy and it will flush out Sam’s weaker family holiday fantasies.

He hopes to meet Sam in a grocery store and belong at his side, when he gets there. Holding his hand.

Sam sniffs and looks down the aisle. Same scene as always. Kids in knitted hats begging for sugary cereals. A woman holding a basket, grinning on the phone promising to _bring a whole entire pan, just for you_.

He comes to pull Chuck upright and offer a box for him to write on. Before he wrecks his back or loses his balance or gets rammed into with another cart or all of the above.

He tosses the box back in the cart and takes the pencil to put behind his own ear. Takes Chuck’s hand again.

“I’ll be in the juice aisle. And you can have as many cases of Capri Sun as you want by then.”

“Oh my god, no take-backs.”

“I didn’t say _now_ , I meant when you find me up there. Those things have so much-“

“Corn syrup, I know, I know, but they’re amazing. And they’re not coffee. Or soda,” he points out. “It says it right on the package – ‘real fruit juice.’”

“Stop. Current restrictions still stand. You’re sticking around for a while longer.”

When they pause again to grab some jars, Chuck decides aloud, “I’m crossing these off,” he points to the list. “Speaking of potatoes, I just remembered a recipe your mom used to make. I’m gonna do that, myself, and blow Dean’s mind. He won’t notice the ingredients are missing until tomorrow. You’re gonna have to run interference.”

He tugs on Chuck’s hand when he grabs it again. Doesn’t tug as hard as his heart’s being yanked on because that would probably hurt.

«»

The kids show up with way more desserts (and plans to bake more) than necessary.

Charlie literally has to be unearthed from one of the dungeons. She’s frazzled and trailing photocopies all the way up the stairs until Jody sees her and says, “HEEEYYYY!”

And Charlie says, “HEEEYYYY!” and it never really quiets down until like. Monday.

Chuck makes magical mashed potatoes with cheese and herbs that Sam can smell on his hands when they settle down for the night.

He also teaches Cas about football in a way that Dean finds so totally unacceptable he has to drag Castiel away for his own tutelage.

Chuck escapes, once, to write 500 words about one of the bowl games and send it off real quick. Sam leaves him to it. It’s just enough time for him to sit in the silence of their room and gather his breath to enter the rabble of their family again.

Also plenty of time for Sam to creep in and lock the door behind him. Press Chuck to the bed and give his own thanks for making everything perfect-perfect-perfect right down to the side-dishes.


End file.
